As you'll be aware, we're currently in the middle of the process of migrating Pegasus Fleet sites over to new infrastructure. The databases were migrated earlier in the year, and now it's time for the filesystems. A couple of our newer sims have been operating out of the new servers for a little while now, and the process for adding new sites has been ironed out, so it's time to start moving existing sites over.

I'll be in touch with COs hosted with us to arrange the best times for this, but this thread will keep track of the dates for each migration, as well as when each has been completed. Bear in mind that whenever a migration is in progress, COs should not attempt to upload new files via FTP or the site's built-in uploader tool, as they may not be carried over to the new server. There may also be a slight delay in your ISP recognising the new server as the home for your sim, so you may not see changes made on the new server reflected for up to 24 hours after the move (though if your ISP respects the TTL set on the DNS entries, it should only be 15 minutes).

I'll make an announcement on Discord at the times that the main fleet sites are migrated as well as posting updates here. For some sites (such as the forums and wiki), I'll likely also use the move as an opportunity to upgrade the sites to the latest version of their respective software, so expect a short outage for each.

Why is this being done?
The main reason for the move is cost-saving; Pegasus Fleet's current hosting infrastructure costs a decent amount of money each month, and the cost can and has gone up. The new servers will cut the hosting bill for the fleet's sites significantly.
The secondary reason is one of ensuring resiliency. Currenty all the fleet sites, databases, admiralty emails, and everything else is all hosted on a single server; that means that if anything catastrophic ever happened to the server, everything would be affected. On the new infrastructure, the databases will be on a separate server to the sites, and the fleet sites will be on a separate server to the sim sites, and emails will be on a different service all-together; if anything were to go wrong with a single one of the servers, the others should not be affected. This also means that each can be backed up individually, and restored from backup that much quicker. It should also mean that the PFA remain contactable by their fleet email addresses even if the web servers go down.
As a third reason, the new servers which will be hosting the sites are far easier to ensure that the underlying software on each is kept up-to-date, increasing the security of our systems. Splitting our infrastructure onto different servers also means that they can be placed behind custom firewalls, to ensure that bad actors are restricted from being able to access, for example, the databases directly.

If the main reason for the move is cost, will we have poorer quality servers after the move?
No. The main factor behind the cost of our current infrastructure is that a lot of the work of managing a server is taken away and made easy for those who are not necessarily tech-savvy. We don't use most of those features, and those that do we sometimes need work-arounds to get them to work the way that we want. The new infrastructure is very bare-bones, which means that we have complete control over it; but the versions of the OS running on the servers is actually more up-to-date than our current ones, and is easier to keep updated as a result of the simpler setup.

Will I notice any difference on my site after its files have been migrated?
The main difference that you will see once your site's files have been migrated is you will have to access a different server to upload or modify files for your site. The primary difference will be a new username and password, a new host to connect to, and updating the connection type from FTP to SFTP, which is far more secure. Aside from that, the actual process of uploading new files to your site should remain the same.

Will I need to do anything when my site gets migrated?
I'll arrange a suitable day and (as much as possible with differing time zones) time with you to migrate your site's files, but other than that you shouldn't need to do anything other than inform your crew when the migration will be happening, and update your FTP details once I send them through to you. Your members will be able to continue using the site as normal during the migration; just bear in mind that any images uploaded during the migration may not be copied over.

If the fleet emails are being migrated to another server, does that mean the PFA's email addresses will change?
No. The emails should hopefully be a 'lift-and-shift' change, and as far as contacting anyone with a fleet email address goes, you shouldn't notice any difference. Depending on how they access their emails, members with a fleet email address will need to either reconfigure their email client or log in to a different site to access their emails, but more information will be sent to those with fleet email addresses when the time comes to look at the options there.

Will it take longer for a new hosted site to be set up after the migration?
No. As the new servers have been set up from scratch to match our requirements, I have actually been able to automate much of the process of setting up a new site. As such, once I pick up your hosting request, it should actually be faster for you to get your new site up and working.

What does this mean for Nova 3?
For those of you in the know, the next version of the Nova software that runs most of our sim's sites will require PHP version 7+; all existing fleet sites are currently incompatible with this version of PHP and run on PHP 5.6. With the new server infrastructure of multiple, single-purpose servers, this means that it should be quite simple to fire up a new server running PHP7 for sims that migrate to Nova 3 when it comes out.

I'm on Nova 2.5. What do I put as the Hosting Company for my Privacy Policy?
If your site hasn't yet been migrated, then the Hosting Company you should list is VPS.net. If your site has been migrated, then the Hosting Company you should list is Digital Ocean.
The log retention policy on both old and new servers is 7 days.